


More Precious Than Goldie

by Cybra



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Introspection, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 09:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cybra/pseuds/Cybra
Summary: SPOILERS for "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!"Goldie loved gold more than Scrooge; that's why he knew she would never stay with him.That was fine.  Scrooge loved something else more than Goldie which was why he wasn't going to follow her.





	More Precious Than Goldie

**Author's Note:**

> Didn’t expect to write something following the latest episode, yet here we are. There is a vague reference to my fic “The Ritual” in this, but it’s not necessary to read that to understand this.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** _Ducktales_ belongs to the Walt Disney Company.

The stone that had accompanied the photograph was currently being used to keep the photo from being blown away by any stray breeze coming in from the open window.  Scrooge hadn’t gotten tired of looking at it, but he had felt the need to put the photograph down after quite some time, quietly contemplating both it and the life the woman pictured represented.

He would always take second place in her heart to gold.  As much as that ached, it was something he’d come to accept.  It didn’t stop him from loving her, of course, but it was a cold hard fact that he refused to let himself ignore.  Most would likely call it foolish to keep trying to hang on to a woman who clearly didn’t value him as much as he valued her—and he would agree—but the heart did what the heart wanted.  He knew if they crossed paths again and she asked him to follow, he’d do so with no hesitation, fully knowledgeable that she would stab him in the back at the earliest opportunity.

But this time the pull of her summons wasn’t as strong as it would have been if she were there to give it in person.  After all, that was what the photograph was: a summons, a hidden message that only he would understand.

_When you’re tired of playing house, let’s have some real fun._

In his younger, wilder days, he would’ve handed the reigns of his business over to his board to devote himself fulltime to adventuring beside her.  She always put him into situations where it took every bit of his wits and skill to get out of them.  He’d be lying if he didn’t say that there had been a spike of adrenaline in that last adventure that he’d been missing in his recent outings.

However, he wasn’t a young man anymore.  True, he still needed that rush of adventure, that thrill of being a heartbeat away from death; he was addicted to it.  Yet it hadn’t been the lack of adventure that had killed him a little more each day during those ten years of silence.

His priorities had shifted.  Or, rather, they had started shifting _back_ to what had been important to him before he’d allowed himself to be carried away by adventure and achievement.  Living on the road going from one thrill to the next was all well and good, but there was something to be said for having a place to return to with people there to welcome you.  He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted a _home_ until he held his nephew and niece in his arms that first time.

Goldie had never understood why the clan was so important to him.  He himself had forgotten as the years had turned to decades, leaving an empty void no amount of wealth and accomplishment could fill despite his best efforts.  Then Baby Donald and Della had shown him what he’d been missing.

He knew it wasn’t Goldie not being around that broke him during those ten long years; it was not having the people that made his life worth living, his family, there.

He could live without Goldie.  He _couldn’t_ live without the children currently running around on the mansion’s front lawn or the duck likely sleeping on an inner tube in his pool.  He couldn’t live without the ghost butler or the spy housekeeper or the borderline insane employees at the Bin.

There would be no McDucks after Scrooge, cruel fate barred that option from him, but the clan lived on through these people, and he needed them more than life itself.

Maybe one day Goldie would understand.  Maybe she would even feel that she needed the domesticity she’d chided him for embracing.

When that day came, she’d know where to find him because he wasn’t going to follow her this time.  She could keep roaming all she liked, risking death every day if it made her happy.  She might love him, but he knew she loved gold more than him and he accepted that.

However, he’d found something he loved more than her, so he would not be joining her in that life just as she couldn’t join him now.  Perhaps his life would be a little duller, and he’d have to hold back on his adventures lest his family suffer the consequences.  Maybe one day his family might even leave him behind again, a possibility he knew would break him completely, yet he wanted every joy and sorrow that came with that risk.

To him it was all more precious than Goldie.


End file.
